Wine: WZG Möglingen Trollinger-Lemberger

After the disappointment with my last bottle of wine, I decided to take another risk. The newly opened branch of the supermarket Edeka in my village has a large selection of Württemberg wines. I noticed that some of them were on special offer. Only 3.20 Euros for a bottle of Trollinger with Lemberger? That's not a bad price. Judging by the label, it looked like a generic wine, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad, so I laid my money down and took it home.

I was pleasantly surprised by the taste when I finally took a sip in the evening. The wine has a rich, fruity taste, not as mild as the Eberbach-Schäfer Trollinger with Lemberger that I often drink, but still a good wine. I checked the label on the back, and I realised what I'd bought. It's not a generic wine, it's a product of the wine cooperative in Möglingen. Möglingen is a small village close to Stuttgart. They're the largest wine cooperative in Württemberg, and one of the largest in Germany. Over 10,000 small vineyards in and around Stuttgart supply their grapes to the cooperative.

I'm critical of wine cooperatives in general. I have no doubt that they work hard to assure quality control, but can they guarantee consistency? Will the wine I drink ten years from now taste the same? On the other hand, I trust the wine from the Besigheimer Felsengarten cooperative. They're only supplied by 220 vineyards, which is a more manageable number.

What's the largest private vineyard in Württemberg that bottles its own wine? It's difficult to compare, because it's not well documented online. The largest that I know is Rolf Willy, which covers an area of 265 hectares. (A hectare is 10,000 square meters or 2.5 acres). Eberbach-Schäfer has only 17 hectares, meaning a smaller variety of wines.